Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.30 (1838)
Nerides quinguevulnera|Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.30 (1838)
Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.30 (1838)
Ten ways of seeing
- measured cast yellow-green
- upright 1.48 : 1
First Look
竖划三寸，当千仞之高；横墨数尺，体百里之迥。
—— 南朝宋·宗炳《画山水序》
A vertical stroke of three inches stands for a cliff of a thousand fathoms; a few feet of ink holds a hundred li.
The sheet is vertical: the eye climbs and settles in the upper half. Let the plant stand before you look for detail. Then step in close: watch where colour meets line, and whether the line ever breaks. Third, find the darkest small patch: the whole tonal order is measured from there.
Name and Thing
No reliable binomial survives, so the printed title must serve. Neither name nor binomial survives: the printed title must do.
Form and Colour
Measured on this plate: flower colour covers 4.9% of the sheet, foliage 18.5%, the cast yellow-green with a second note of amber. No other plate shares exactly this measure. Orchids carry pseudobulbs or fleshy roots; six tepals, one modified into a lip that serves as a landing stage, and a column uniting stamens and pistil — a structure unique to the family.No colour group is recorded. Three things fix the habit: leaf arrangement, tepal count, and how the flower is borne.
Composition
The sheet is tall. No details are appended: a plate for looking, not for keying out. The plant covers only 26% of the sheet, centred above centre; the emptiness is where the eye rests.
Line and Colour
The first half of the nineteenth century moved from copper to steel to lithography; stipple could render the softest transition. Craft leaves franker evidence than inscriptions. If you mean to copy it: take its skeleton, its margins and the order of its colours; the burin's hatching is the language of copper — suggest it with pencil density, do not imitate it stroke for stroke.
Poetic Resonance
兰叶春葳蕤，桂华秋皎洁。
—— 唐·张九龄《感遇》
Orchid leaves luxuriate in spring; cassia flowers are bright and pure in autumn.
The poem gives the mood first and the picture supplies the form; set the line beside the plate and the corolla becomes its resting point.
Symbolism
In China the orchid is the gentleman who blooms unseen; in Victorian Europe it was luxury and obsession, a single new species worth a fortune. Meanings change their tune: the same flower can say opposite things within a century.
Season and Place
Varies by genus: temperate terrestrials flower in spring and summer, tropical epiphytes almost year-round. the orchids drawn for European portfolios came largely from the cloud forests of Central America and Southeast Asia. The year 1838 on the plate is that of publication, not of flowering — the gathering came a year or two earlier. Read the locality and the flowering season both with a discount: one is hearsay, the other a ten-day peak.
The Book and the Hand
“Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers” carries only John Lindley's name. The image is public domain; the hand-colouring is still one person's hand.
What to Take Away
Appreciation is not knowledge but habit — one more look each time. A flora exists to be consulted; look long enough and you forget to consult — someone in 1838 gave a whole day to a single flower.
About this plate
Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers Pl.30 (1838) is plate 30, from Sertum orchidaceum; A wreath of the most beautiful orchidaceous flowers, drawn by John Lindley. This public-domain plate is reproduced at high resolution, free to view and download. Publication: London, J. Ridgway, 1838.
